INTRODUCTION 7coast and entirely ringed by mountains. This was to be the nucleus of
the medieval kingdoms of Leon and Castille. To the north of the
Meseta are found the mountains of Cantabria, which effectively shut
off the plateau from the Bay of Biscay. It was against the inhabitants
of these mountains that a string of legionary fortresses had to be
erected in the time of the early Empire. The indigenous peoples of
this area and of the only slightly less rugged region of Galicia to the
west received very little imprint of Roman civilisation and retained
some features of their early Iron Age culture until as late as the
eighth century.12
To go south from the Meseta is to enter the old Roman provinces
of Lusitania and Baetica. Here the dominant features are the great
river valleys of the Tagus, Guadiana and Guadalquivir, each with its
notable cities: Toledo, Merida, Cordoba and Seville, and a relative
abundance of evidence of prosperous Roman rural life. The valleys
were fertile and their towns, with the exception ofTarragona (Tarraco)
and Barcelona (Barcinona) in Catalonia, the most important in
Roman Spain. But even here substantial problems were imposed by
local geography, as the valleys are divided one from another by
mountain ranges and are less easy of access than might appear.
In the extreme west the land flattens out into an extensive coastal
plain, almost identical with the area of modern Portugal, which rep-
resents the results of the silting action of those rivers previously
mentioned. In the Roman period, due to the limitations on sea trans-
port beyond the comparative safety of the Mediterranean, this region
was particularly remote from the rest of the Empire and its towns,
such as Lisbon (Olissipo) of relatively little note. Finally the south-
eastern quarter of the peninsula is a rugged and desolate region and
was probably sparsely populated at any period; the only exception
being the thin coastal strip, largely cut off from the rest of the land-
mass and looking instead towards Mrica.
The peculiarities imposed upon the peninsula by its geography
were reinforced in the period before the Roman conquest by its
history. Its Janus-like qualities of looking simultaneously northwards
towards western Europe and south to Mrica meant that waves of
migrants with very different cultures were able to enter the penin-
sula from opposite directions. In the middle of the first millenniuJIl
BC virtually simultaneous waves of Celts, coming south across the
Pyrenees, and Iberians, crossing the straits from Mrica, settled in
Spain. As a result they gave distinct cultural differences to north and